Scottish government goes on the road to seek views on jury research
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The Scottish government is hosting a series of engagement events across the country to seek views from the legal profession, third sector, and people with experience of the justice system, on the findings and any implications its jury research may have for future criminal justice reforms.
The Scottish Jury Research: Findings From a Large-Scale Mock Jury Study, published in October 2019 is the largest of its kind ever undertaken in the UK.
A summary of the jury research findings is available here.
The research involved 64 mock juries and 969 individual participants and is the first to consider the unique nature of the Scottish jury system with 15 jurors, three verdicts and a simple majority.
The report sets out the researchers’ findings but does not make any recommendations. It suggests that:
- Reducing jury size from 15 to 12, as is the norm in most English language jurisdictions, might lead to more individual jurors switching their position towards the majority view.
- Asking juries to reach a unanimous or near unanimous verdict might tilt more jurors in favour of acquittal.
- Removing the not proven verdict might incline more jurors towards a guilty verdict in finely balanced trials.
- Jurors hold inconsistent views on the meaning of not proven and how it differs from not guilty.
When the research was published, the Justice Secretary, Humza Yousaf, said that the Scottish government will engage in serious discussions on all of these findings including whether we should move to a two verdict system.
The government’s events will consist of interactive table discussions (facilitated by Scottish government officials) on delegates’ views on the implications of the jury research findings for potential criminal justice reforms as well as their own experiences of the issues raised in the research.
If you would like to attend one of these events please register for a place via the links below.
Dundee, 23 January
If you are unable to attend an event but still wish to be involved in the engagement process please contact JuryResearch@gov.scot.
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